Joseph Palermo: I cannot believe that in the 21st Century we are having this kind of a debate on the role of labor unions in this country. But I suppose it isn’t surprising since we have a new Gilded Age going on.

Wendy McElroy: Even as the Illinois police defend their “right” to surveil everyone on the grounds that those being watched are in public, they deny the public the right to record them in the line of duty.

David Love: Meanwhile, theocratic GOP members of Congress are proposing the crudely worded “The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.” Current law allows for federal funding of abortions only in the case of rape or incest.

Carol Strickman: The best way to ensure that people successfully reenter society is to provide resources to support them upon release. Prisoners who have maintained family ties and have housing and employment opportunities awaiting them will do better than those who don’t.

Diane Lefer: The restorative justice model is able to keep the compassionate focus on those who have suffered most from violent crime–the victims, while still addressing the factors that drive crime and recidivism and without denying the humanity of the imprisoned.

Progressive Issues

Rosemary Joyce: Archaeology has a checkered history of exploitation by totalitarian regimes. Treating the question of what materials from the past should be preserved, studied, and thus valorized, as politically neutral is part of the reason for that history.